FIG. 1 depicts top and side views of a portion of a conventional energy assisted magnetic recording (EAMR) transducer 10. For clarity, FIG. 1 is not to scale. The conventional EAMR transducer 10 is used in writing a recording media (not shown in FIG. 1) and receives light, or energy, from a conventional laser (not shown in FIG. 1). The conventional EAMR transducer 10 includes a conventional waveguide 12 having cladding 14 and 16 and core 18, a conventional grating 20, a conventional near-field transducer (NFT) 22, a coil 24, and a conventional pole 30. Light from a laser (not shown) is incident on the grating 20, which coupled light to the waveguide 12. Light is guided by the conventional waveguide 12 to the NFT 22 near the air-bearing surface (ABS). The NFT 22 focuses the light to magnetic recording media (not shown), such as a disk.
In operation, light from the laser is coupled to the conventional EAMR transducer 10 using the grating 20. The waveguide 12 directs light from the grating 12 to the NFT 22. The NFT 22 focuses the light from the waveguide 12 and heats a small region of the conventional media (not shown). The conventional EAMR transducer 10 magnetically writes data to the heated region of the recording media by energizing the conventional pole 30 using the conventional coil 24.
The trend in magnetic recording continues to higher recording densities. Magnetic recording densities have already reached 500-600 Gb/in2 using traditional perpendicular magnetic recording technology. To further increase magnetic recording density, EAMR is used. At such high densities, a conventional pole 30 having a high aspect ratio is desired for an EAMR head. For example, the width, w, of the conventional pole 30 is desired to be on the order of one hundred nanometers. The height, h, of the conventional pole 30 is desired to be approximately 1.2 microns. Thus, the aspect ratio (h/w) of the conventional pole may be desired to be large. However, such an aspect ratio is difficult to achieve with conventional processing. Stated differently, the actual aspect ratio of the pole conventional 30 is typically much less than 10.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for improving performance and reliability of an EAMR transducer.